All language subtitles for Mayday.S03E11.Collision.Course.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

A ship wreck
in the Greek islands.

Hundreds of people
fight for survival

in a swirling storm.

We need to help this man!

With their lives on the line,

some people become heroes.

Don't let go!

Others do whatever
it takes to stay alive.

Keep her away!
She'll kill us both!

Investigators uncover
an extraordinary

chain of events.

Small mistakes which have
deadly consequences.

Mayday! Mayday!
We're doing 90 miles an hour.

Out of control!

Take a life jacket!

- Where's the coast guard?
- Don't let go!

A passenger ferry
pushes its way through a storm.

What is that?! Whoa!

Oh, my God!

Within sight of land,

this Greek islands ferry
is sinking

in high winds and stormy seas.

There was a hole,
and it was gonna sink,

and it was gonna sink fast.

A huge rescue operation
kicks in.

Rescuers must risk
their own lives.

I never want to be
in that situation ever again

because it was terrifying.

But I had enough time to think
this is the part where I die.

It was like a catastrophe,
it was as if it was coming

the end of the world
for this island.

For the people of Greece,
it's a national disaster.

The worst of its kind
in 30 years.

Discovering why it happened

will take months
of detective work.

And raise this question:

How safe are the ships
we sail on?

The Greek capital, Athens.

This great metropolis
has a 3,000-year history.

A history built around
the city's easy access

to the Mediterranean.

The harbour district
of Athens is called Piraeus.

Ferry boats ply back and forth

between here and the more
than 200 islands

scattered throughout
the Aegean Sea.

For island hoppers,

this is where
the adventure begins.

It's here somewhere.
It has to be.

Heidi, today would be good.

I'm hurrying!

Are you sure you don't--

Tuesday, September 26, 2000.

Christine Shannon
and Heidi Hart,

from Seattle, are close
friends.

They've bought tickets
for a ferry ride

to the island of Paros

166 kilometres
to the south-east.

- Express. Samina?
- Express sounds good.

How long's the ride?

Christine's 32,
and teaches pre-school.

Heidi's 26, and just graduated
from college.

She wants to go into
business management.

It's been a crazy kind of day.

They'd planned on going
to the island of Santorini,

further south.

- I had it? Okay, let's go.
- We have to hurry!

I have the tickets!

Always rushing!

We'd been enjoying Athens
the night before

a little too much,
and we overslept

and missed our Santorini boat.

I had never
heard of Paros.

I even asked them,

"Well, show me on a map
where the island is."

And, then I said,
never mind. It doesn't matter.

Let's just go.
It's the next boat.

Let's go somewhere.

So, it was a fluke
that we were on that boat.

Here's where chance
is steering them.

It could be a whole lot worse.

If you dream
of a Greek getaway,

Paros is just what
the guide books promise.

Life is laid-back

and the backdrop is enchanting.

Around 12,000 people
live on Paros year-round.

In tourist season,

add to that a 100,000 visitors.

Ferries from Athens
head for the harbour

in the main town, Parikia.

There's constant traffic
back and forth to the mainland.

As one boat's leaving,
another one shows up,

bringing hundreds
more eager visitors.

Christine and Heidi
are among 472 passengers

who board the Samina today.

As they get ready to embark,
one thing becomes clear.

Some of the boats
on the islands run are modern,

newly built.

But the Samina comes
from a different era.

She's been criss-crossing
the Mediterranean since 1966.

The Samina was launched
before these two were born.

And though they don't
realize it,

Greek safety laws say
that in a little over a year,

the Samina will be pulled
out of service

and sent to the scrapyard.

I made a few jokes
to Christine about,

the lifeboats
don't look very safe.

If we get into trouble
out here, I said,

we'll be screwed.

And I said, well,

there's no icebergs
in the Aegean.

So, we should be okay.

- Say cheese.
- Cheese.

The Samina can carry more
than a thousand passengers,

along with her 61 crew.

So today the ship's
less than half full.

Katrina Stark and her cousin
Sarah Davis,

both from New Zealand,
are backpacking.

So that means...

Like Heidi and Christine,

they're literally sailing
into the unknown.

We had no plans.

We went to get on the very
first ferry that was leaving.

Going wherever it was going
to take us,

and that happened to be
first stop Paros.

At 7:15,
two hours into the journey,

the sun is setting.

There are still three hours
to kill

before the Samina arrives.

The sports fans on board,

passengers and crew,

know just how they'd
like to spend the time.

There's a major soccer game
playing live on TV.

Athens star side,
Panathanaikos,

are up against
their German rivals, Hamburg.

The reception
wasn't very good

and so they had various
staff come along

trying to fix the TV,

and everyone was putting
suggestions

on how to fix the TV,
and it seemed to be quite

important to everybody on board
that they get to see this game.

At 8 PM, the Samina passes
the island of Kythnos.

They're on schedule
to reach Paros

at around a quarter past ten.

The wind is rising.

The sea is growing rougher.

But these northerly winds,
known as the meltemi,

are frequent
at this time of year.

The Samina has weathered
conditions much worse than this

over the past three decades.

I'm going to take a nap!

Heidi and Christine are
the only people left outside.

They think their tickets
don't allow them to go in.

Goodnight! Wake me
when we're there.

I said, "We have
third-class tickets,

we have to stay out on the deck.

It's gonna be a cold,
wet, terrible night."

But I didn't even think
to go downstairs

where most of the people
on the boat were.

For the crew of the Samina,

the night-time journey
is routine.

Hazards such as reefs and rocks

are all clearly marked
on their charts.

Many have warning lights.

Two jagged outcrops
rise from the sea

within sight of the main harbour
on Paros,

Parikia Bay.

Known as the Portes,
or the Gates,

they lie five-and-a-half
kilometres from the town.

For every mariner
sailing these waters,

the Gates of Paros
are a familiar landmark.

They're welcoming,
but dangerous too.

The rocks rise 25 metres
out of the sea.

Every passing ship must give
them a wide clearance.

At night, a beacon light
on the taller of the two rocks

sends a clear warning
to sailors.

Stray too close
to the Gates of Paros,

and disaster will follow.

They're still two hours away.

But they're sailing
into a growing storm.

Despite the weather,

Christine and Heidi
are still out in the open.

Had I known
we could go to any other part

of the boat at that point
in time, I would have.

But I didn't know,

and actually being
in that part of the boat

I think was very
fortuitous for us,

because we were able to be aware
of what was going on later.

Being out on the deck
will help save their lives.

Soon everyone aboard
will be fighting for survival.

On the evening
of September 26, 2000,

the passenger ferry
Express Samina

leaves Athens' harbour, Piraeus,
heading south-east.

She's making
for the island of Paros,

five hours away
in the Aegean Sea.

As the sun sets,
the weather deteriorates

until by nightfall,
the ship is being buffeted

by a northerly gale.

But the crew are used
to such conditions.

Their ship is big enough,
tough enough,

to survive far worse.

The Samina is 115 metres long,

more than a soccer field,

and 18 metres wide.

Passengers are widely dispersed.

Heidi and Christine
are out on the open deck.

Katrina and Sarah are inside
the main passenger lounge.

The nerve centre is here,
the engine room.

It's below the waterline,

but is protected by a series
of watertight doors.

The crew need to move about.

But the ship is safe,
so long as they lock the doors

tight behind them.

To reduce the rolling effect
of the waves,

the ship also has
a stabilizing system,

like small wings that extend
out into the water.

It's still a bumpy ride,

but it doesn't stop passengers
moving about when they want to.

As we got further away
and night began to fall,

the seas got rougher
and it became stormy,

until it got to the point
where you couldn't even

walk on board,

you had to kind of
stumble sideways.

People were kind of laughing.

It was kind of funny
at the time.

Being from a place
where we ride ferries

quite often, it wasn't really
a concern to us at the time.

But it was pretty
rough out there.

It's 10 PM.

The wind has now risen
to nearly 50 kilometres an hour.

Waves are cresting
two metres high.

Despite the gale,
visibility is good.

Those are the lights of Paros.

The Samina's on time

and still pushing forward
at 33 kilometres an hour.

Then suddenly...

...the ship lurches
sharply to the left.

- What's that?
- I don't know.

The boat turned enough
that it startled me awake.

I woke up and was kind
of dazed a little bit.

You can't just park a boat
like you're parking a car.

And so, I though it was odd
that I felt this G-force

of the boat turning.

Christine said,
"Hey, there's lights.

I see shore, we must be getting
pretty close to docking."

The lights
of Parikia,

even car headlights,
are clearly visible

just five-and-a-half
kilometres away.

But then another light cuts
through the darkness.

What the...?

Whoa!

Oh, my God!

Oh, my God!

This rock just
comes out of nowhere,

just out of the black night.

I'll never forget what
it looks like in my mind.

It was this brown,
kind of craggily

sandish-looking rock

that had lights
on top of it shining down

so it illuminated it.

And it made it look
like a movie set.

The side of the boat
scraped along the side.

I could have walked
over and touched it.

And you could hear down
on the lower decks of the boat

that the metal
was just ripping apart.

The unthinkable
has happened.

The Samina has crashed
against the Gates of Paros.

One million kilos of ship
grind against the rocks.

It was the worst sound,
and it was the loudest sound

I've ever heard in my life.

It sounded like fingernails
on a chalkboard,

just, God's fingernail

on the biggest chalkboard
in the world.

There was a hole,

and it was gonna sink,
and it was gonna sink fast.

The shock wave
reverberates through the ship.

Suddenly,
there was a big lurch

to the right side of the boat,

and people who were standing up
got thrown off their feet.

Everything in the bar smashed.

I looked out the window,
and there were two large rocks

we passed that looked white,

lit up by the light
inside the ship.

I don't know what that was.

Oh man, it just doesn't
sound good, you know?

In a situation
like this,

the time frame is so hard
to put back together.

But it seemed like maybe
a minute or two

until the boat started
to noticeably lilt

to the side and tip.

And that's kind of when
the chaos started.

We have to get off
the ship!

Lots of people were crying.
Lots of people were praying,

holding on to each other,
yelling.

There was no alarm or siren.

There was no one to tell us
what we were supposed to do.

We need to get off this boat
and we need to leave right now!

We don't have to panic.

Christine said to me,

"The Titanic took hours
to sink."

And I said, "We don't
have that much time."

We don't have hours, Chrisine!

We need to leave now!

Okay, okay, okay.

In my mind I thought,

"This boat's gonna sink
and we're all gonna die."

All these people were
trying to get life jackets.

Being taller, I was able
to reach over the heads

of most people who were trying
to get hold of life jackets

and grabbed two.

The Samina
has 61 crew members.

But where are they?

Passengers must fend
for themselves.

I yelled to Christine,
"Come here,

I think I found life vests."

Okay, it doesn't open.
Just take them out.

At this point people
were starting to run past us.

And I was saying,
"Here, take these!"

And throwing them out,
and people were just panicking.

Take life jackets!

Within minutes
of the collision,

the ship's lights go out.

Passengers are plunged
into darkness,

until emergency
generators kick in.

And then the first
flare went off.

This eerie red glow

coming down over the ferry

gave it a whole other feeling
of just terror,

that we're out in the night,

in the dark,

and the ferry's gonna sink.

Get out of the way!

At the harbour,
port officials are now aware

of the developing crisis.

Port authority vice commander
Dimitrios Malamas

starts to organize a rescue.

He needs all available boats
right now.

What vessels
do we have in the area?

Alexis Bisbas runs a yacht
charter business in ParAikia.

The first I heard
of the disaster

was a phone call I got
from the port police

at about 10:15.

Can I get out there
with my boat

as quickly as possible?

Just to help with whatever
might be necessary.

There was no way
that we had any idea

that it was going to be
a disaster of that magnitude.

Paros has a medical centre

equipped for the islanders'
basic needs,

not a major disaster.

Doctor John Polyzoides

was an ER surgeon
for 35 years.

Though retired,
he helps run the centre.

We saw the ship
was going down,

and there were a lot of boats
and lights and so on,

but I personally did not expect
anything tragic

to come out of that,
because it was so close

to the harbour.

Aboard the Samina,
many of the 472 passengers

are in a state of sheer terror.

It was chaos.

It was people not knowing
what to do,

and waiting for a captain
or a crew to help us.

There was a woman who went
through the door just before us,

and as soon as she got out
onto the deck,

she climbed over the railings
and just jumped off,

like, didn't look back or didn't
say anything to anybody,

and just climbed over and threw
herself off into the water.

There were people holding
children over the railings

wanting to throw them down
to people in the water.

It was quite a terrible scene.

The wind hampers efforts
to abandon ship.

They were releasing
inflatable life rafts,

but they weren't attached
to the ship,

so as soon as it was released,

there was a big storm,

it would get picked up
by the wind

as soon as it was inflated,

and they were just blowing
halfway to Athens.

The rafts blow beyond
the reach of many passengers

who've already
leapt into the sea.

In the confusion,

Heidi Hart is knocked flying,

striking her head.

Heidi! Are you okay?

I kept thinking,
"If I black out now, you know,

I'm done for.
This boat's sinking.

I have to stay conscious."

I had this adrenaline rush,

and there was a feeling
that I would call terror.

I knew instantly this was gonna
be a fight for our lives.

There was some point in time
where I literally felt myself

leave my body
and instincts kicked in.

Everybody was running
to the rear of the boat,

and Christine just
looked at me and said...

Go that way,
to the front of the boat.

And she said,
"But nobody's up there."

It was the darkest
part of the boat,

it was the highest
part of the boat.

She said, "Nobody's up there."

I said, "I don't care, go."

And luckily for us,

that's where we found a lifeboat

hanging over
the side of the ship.

Heidi and Christine
have escaped the sinking ship,

but they're still at the mercy
of the storm.

When we'd jumped
into the lifeboat,

it wasn't orderly,
"Here's your seat."

It was, jump.

Where you land is where you are.

And so, we were just
kind of all pig-piled

in this lifeboat together.

The battle for survival
takes an ugly turn.

Each passenger must decide,

help others
or fend for themselves.

There were five or six
men in the back of the boat

and they were
fighting with each other.

They were yelling at each other.
As the ferry was sinking,

they kept pointing at the ferry
and fighting with each other.

And this is when I see the guy

swim up to the boat,
so I started getting ready.

I'm thinking,
"Okay, I need a rope.

I gotta throw him something.
He has no life vest on."

We need help here, somebody!

Get up, get up!

Help us, would you?!
To grab him!

The only thing you could see
was his eyes and his nose

coming out of the water, and he
was just barely making it,

swimming towards us.

Everybody else on the boat
was yelling,

"No, no, we can't
take any more people on."

I've got you, don't worry!
I've got you!

Heidi leaned over
and grabbed

this gentleman's hand,

and I reached over
and grabbed her by the waist,

and she told me,
"I'm not letting go."

And I yelled
to the other people,

"She's not letting go."

He had taken off
almost all of his clothes,

he was wearing
just his underwear.

Somebody grab him!

We need some help!
We need to help this man!

I'm not a very big
person, I'm five-feet tall.

Just me trying to pull him in
the boat wasn't gonna work.

That's it!

The men
in the lifeboat realize

that Heidi won't let go,

and finally help haul
the drowning man on board.

I don't know what
they were thinking,

they were panicking.

So, who am I to judge

what other people
were thinking and doing?

But...

There was a lot more that
could have been done that night.

Of the 533 people
who set out on the Samina,

many are now in the sea.

Others are still trapped
on the vessel itself.

The ship begins to roll over.

If it goes down,

dozens of people will be
dragged down with it.

Oh, my God!

The passenger ferry
Express Samina

has struck rocks
near the island of Paros,

in the Aegean Sea.

533 passengers and crew

face a battle to survive
in high winds and stormy seas.

Some people have managed
to clamber into a lifeboat.

Others have stayed
with the ship,

and now fear it
will sink beneath them.

At that stage,
we were on the deck

trying to figure out
whether it was a good idea

to jump overboard as well,

but we were tilting
further and further

and it was getting to the point
where we didn't really

have that choice anymore.

It's 10:50.

40 minutes after the collision.

Sarah!

Are you being me?

As the Samina
continues to roll,

Katrina Stark has little choice.

She hauls herself over the rail.

The ship has turned
completely on its side.

Katrina is sitting on the hull.

Should she try to swim
for shore

or wait for rescue?

While I was sitting there
thinking about that...

all of a sudden,

the ship just sank underneath us

and sucked us down,
and everything around it.

I don't know how much time
we were under the water,

but I had enough time to think,
okay, well this is the part

where I die, this is the part
where I drown.

I kind of thought,
well, okay, that's fine.

And had enough time
to be okay with that.

Just as we got there,

we saw the ferry sinking,

which was...

...an extreme sight.

To see this entire ship

sink beneath the waves

and to be gone,

and just leave us
in our little lifeboat,

it was amazing.

It was almost beautiful
in a sad sort of way.

And then complete blackness, darkness.

Huge waves.

The Samina sinks
two-and-a-half kilometres

from the Gates of Paros.

Even without its engines,

wind, waves,
and the ship's own momentum

carried the Samina
closer to shore.

The sea here is 38 metres deep.

As the Samina goes down,

huge bubbles of air escape
from the ship,

making the water less dense,

making objects in the water
sink more quickly.

Katrina Stark sinks
several metres

before the buoyancy
of her life jacket

pulls her up again.

As suddenly as I had
been sucked under,

suddenly I popped out the top.

Sarah!

Her priority now
is to find her cousin, Sarah.

In the storm,
she can't tell where she is.

The waves were so big
that for one second,

it sounded like
she was over there,

and so I tried to swim that way.
And then the next second,

it sounded like
she's over there,

I tried to swim that way.

Sarah!

Sarah!

I can hear you,
but I can't see you!

Sarah! Sarah!

Eventually I just
said to her, okay,

make sure you get on a boat
and get back to land,

and I will see you
back on shore.

At 11:15 PM,

Dr. Polyzoides receives
his first casualty of the night.

But something doesn't add up.

They brought a man
on a stretcher.

He was semi-conscious,

and when we started
working on him,

he had hardly
any blood pressure.

And when we were
resuscitating him,

I realized that he was dry,

which meant
that he didn't actually...

He was not from the ship.

Anyway, we carried on.

Eventually, we lost him.

He died in our hands,

and then people came and said,
you know who it was?

And I said no.

His patient
isn't from the Samina,

but the disaster still claims
its first victim.

The man is Dimitrios Malamas

who had been helping
organize the rescue.

In the crisis,
he'd suffered a heart attack.

He was 40 years old.

So you can
understand

even at this early stage,

although we did not know
the number of people

that we were going to lose,

there was that sense
of tragedy immediately

from the very beginning.

A local shopkeeper,
George Skandalis,

grabs his video camera

and captures these
first raw images

as survivors begin to appear.

As soon as we got
close enough to shore,

when I saw this white cathedral

with a blue-domed top,

that was when I finally
knew we made it.

We're gonna get to shore,
we're gonna be alive.

I felt more alive than
I've ever felt in my life.

Giddy, almost giddy.

And actually afterwards,

one of the things
that I had to come to terms with

was that people died
and I felt so alive.

One of the local
fishing boats now appears,

crowded with people who've been
dragged from the sea.

Local boat owner Alexis Bisbas

is part of the rescue flotilla,
searching for survivors.

One minute we were flying
across the top of a wave.

The next minute we were burying
the bow of the boat

into the previous wave.

We had water coming
across the decks.

I've been sailing all my life.

I've never had
a situation like that.

I never want to be
in that situation ever again

because it was terrifying.

He plucks 25 people
from the sea

in three trips out
into the stormy waters.

One of the amazing
things in these situations

is the way that people behave.

A young guy that we pulled out

was still carrying
his portable stereo system,

so the one hand is trying
to grab hold of the boat,

and the other hand,
as we realized,

was being hampered
by this stereo system

that he still had
in his other hand.

One of them was an old lady
who had tied to her life jacket,

her bag, and as we were trying
to drag her into the boat,

we realized that something
was stopping her.

And I went to cut

her free of this bag,

and she said to us
that if we did,

we should throw her back,
because that was

her entire life in this bag.

Many survivors
are in a state of shock.

All are cold,
wet, and exhausted.

Just a few hundred metres away,

dozens of people
are still in the water

trying to stay alive
until they're spotted

by a rescue boat.

Katrina Stark
and a fellow survivor,

a total stranger,

are now clinging desperately
to a piece of wreckage.

My first surprise
about being in the water

was that it was warm.

I was really expecting
the water to be cold.

There were big waves,
and you just had to cling on

tight to the piece of wreckage.

Not too far away from us
was an older Greek woman

who couldn't swim.

And she was panicking,

and screaming and yelling,

trying to get someone
to come and save her.

Hold on!

We have to save her!

And the guy
that I was with was saying

she's going to want
to come over to us,

and if she grabs hold of us,
she's going to drag us down.

Keep her away!
She'll kill us both!

She had kind of wild eyes,
like she was clearly panicking,

and a big wave came

and washed over her,
and she didn't come back up

out of the water.
She had drowned.

There are still
some signs of hope.

Some people have been pushed
south by the wind.

Miraculously avoiding
being smashed onto the rocks,

they've wound up
on a sandy beach,

the bay of St. Irene.

A life raft beaches
in the same spot.

They're safe now,

but the terror these little
children have gone through

is hard to comprehend.

More than 400 survivors have now
wound up on the dockside.

Many have suffered a terrifying
ordeal in the water.

They're rushed
to the medical centre,

where Dr. Polyzoides
has now assembled

a team of 15 medics.

Some doctors and nurses
based on the island,

others, tourists
who've come in to assist.

Between 11:30 and 12,

the first drowned

was brought in on a stretcher.

And although I worked
for 35 years

as an accident surgeon,

it was a horrible experience.

That was the beginning
of the horrific feeling

which I had,
that this is serious now.

At midnight,
after an hour in the water,

Katrina Stark
is brought to shore.

We were the last
people that they were able

to bring up onto the boat.

They headed back
for the harbour,

and on the way,
they stopped a couple of times

to pick people up,

but they would go
to pick them up

and realize that they were dead,
and so they'd just leave them

where they were.

Katrina doesn't know
if her cousin made it.

Sarah?

Katrina!

I have never been
so happy

to see anybody
in my whole life.

How did you get here?

And I just grabbed
hold of her,

and I wouldn't leave her side
for a second.

I'm so happy to see you.

Are you okay?
Are you keeping warm?

Yeah.

It was terrifying.
It's been five years

since the accident,
and I still have nightmares,

I still think about it.

It will still make me cry.

It was traumatic
and it was very scary,

but it was also

a singularly defining
moment in my life

where I was able to use
all of the resources

I had to survive.

Pull, pull, pull!

I don't think I would have
chosen not to live through this.

At half-past
midnight,

more than two hours
after the collision,

the rescue operation is becoming
more and more

a search for bodies.

When you start seeing
the bodies in the sea,

somebody that I knew
that an hour ago,

they were breathing,
and suddenly they're dead,

and they're...

It was very distressing.

It took me a very long time

to put it out of my mind.

It was very difficult.

Twenty-five people
are now confirmed dead.

As victims continue to arrive,

Dr. Polyzoides is overwhelmed.

Do I go to this room
and try and save someone?

Do I wait and see
whether he's worth saving?

And it was like a catastrophe,

it was as if it was coming
the end of the world

for this island.

So it was almost like
you're seeing a movie,

it's not happening to you.

Every half an hour,
the number of bodies increased.

By 2:30 AM,
the number of dead reaches 60.

There's no room for so many
bodies in the medical centre.

The church of St. Nicholas
on the waterfront

now becomes a temporary morgue.

The search for people,
alive or dead,

continues right
through the night.

Very soon, investigators will
begin to ask tough questions.

Who is to blame for the sinking?

Why did so many people
have to die?

The passenger ferry
Express Samina

has sunk in a storm
in the Aegean Sea.

Already 60 people
are confirmed dead.

Many more need
medical treatment.

Morning reveals the power
of last night's storm.

A lifeboat lies smashed
to pieces on the rocks.

Life rafts blew away, empty.

A message board
at the harbour front

lists who's alive
and who's still missing.

Bodies will continue to wash up
on the beaches for days to come.

There are not enough
coffins on Paros.

More arrive.

Even the most
experienced professionals

are touched by the trauma.

I was so shaken by this
that I didn't sleep

for two nights,
and on the third night

when I went to sleep,

I dreamt that my son
was drowning.

Very quickly,
the grief turns to anger.

Where were the crew
when the ship hit the rocks?

Where were they
when the passengers needed help?

Rumours spread like wildfire

and are picked up by the media.

Were some members of the crew
watching the soccer game on TV

when they should have been
steering the ship?

The captain, 53-year-old
Vassilis Yannakos,

is held for questioning
by the police.

On Paros, the funerals begin.

Here, a four-year-old boy,
drowned with his father.

Divers discover 10 bodies

trapped inside the hull
of the Samina.

The last body is found floating

two weeks after the sinking,

50 kilometres north of Paros.

Altogether, 80 people have died.

75 passengers,
five crew members.

This is Greece's worst
shipping disaster

in more than 30 years.

A national tragedy.

In the bitter aftermath,

the spotlight falls
on the company

which owned the Samina,
and its vice president,

Pantelis Sfinias.

He could face criminal charges,

as well as multi-million-dollar
compensation claims.

Two months after the sinking,

police surround a body
lying on the sidewalk

outside company headquarters
in Athens.

Sfinias has jumped out
of his sixth floor window,

committing suicide.

Maritime experts

at the National
Technical University of Athens

begin an inquiry.

Detailed testimony is gathered
from 46 crew members,

as well as 192 passengers.

The Greek legal authorities
want the university

to give them a thorough
explanation of what happened.

Professor David Molyneux

of the National Research
Centre of Canada

is one of the world's
leading experts on ferry safety.

He's studied the findings
of the Greek investigators,

who came up with
a startling realization.

What they found at the inquiry
defied some of the initial

speculation concerning
the age of the ship.

And the accident in fact
turned out to be caused

by something completely
different.

Testimony reveals each small
but critical factor

that, together, turn a routine
ferry crossing

into a national disaster.

Three hours into the journey,

the crew switch on
the ship's autopilot.

The autopilot
is an electronic link

between the compass
and the rudder,

correcting the rudder
a little bit one way

or the other to bring you
back where you want to be.

Even on autopilot,

a crew member should constantly
monitor the ship's position.

It's bad practice
to leave an autopilot unattended

particularly in bad weather,

because the wind, the waves,
and the current

are all acting to drift
the ship in one direction,

and that kind of steady drift
is not compensated for

by the electronics
in the autopilot.

As the weather
grows worse,

the crew deploy
the ships' stabilizer system,

to make the ride more
comfortable for the passengers.

The stabilizer uses
two small fins

to counteract
the roll of the ship.

But something extraordinary
has happened.

Only the starboard,
or right-hand

stabilizer fin has extended.

Very unusual.
Normally we'd expect

both stabilizers to be working
at any one time.

With just one stabilizer,

the ship is no longer
symmetrical,

so the flow around the ship
is unbalanced,

and as a result,
the ship will tend

to drift one way rather
than to go in a straight line.

With only the starboard
stabilizer,

the Samina is pulled,
slowly but surely,

to the right.

It's a deadly malfunction.

Captains aim to stay
at least 740 metres left

of the Gates of Paros.

But when the Samina arrives,

she's on collision course.

A crew member makes
a last-minute attempt

to steer the ship
to the left.

But the ship can't turn
quickly enough.

Whoa!

Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

It was very
unfortunate the ship got holed,

but there was really no reason
why the ship should have sank.

The damage was within the range

that you would normally expect
a ship to survive.

Get off this ship!

The east face
of the taller pinnacle

is where the ship strikes

at 12 minutes past ten PM.

There's a six metre
lengthways gash,

as long as a telephone pole,

and one metre wide.

Are you okay?

But this hole is well
above the water line.

No water should enter the ship.

Moments later, a second impact.

The stabilizer fin
bends backwards.

It stabs, like a dagger,
through the ship's side.

Oh, my God!

This three-metre gash
is below the waterline.

Even worse, it's exactly
alongside the engine room.

The main generators
are knocked out.

Electrical power is cut
throughout the ship.

One more!

The investigating team
orders divers

to make a detailed survey
of the wreck of the Samina.

Inside, they discover
the final piece of the puzzle.

Even with two large holes,
the ship could have been saved.

One final error sealed
the fate of the Samina.

The passenger ferry
Express Samina

strikes rocks near
the Greek island of Paros.

With two gaping holes
in her starboard side,

she capsizes and sinks
in 38 metres of water.

Divers go down
to survey the wreck

and make a startling discovery.

Like all large seagoing ships,

the Samina is divided
into separate compartments,

sealed by watertight doors,
like this one.

Safety laws insist they remain
locked while the ship is at sea.

On the Samina's last journey,
some of the doors were open.

If you imagine
in your house,

every time you went through
a door from the kitchen,

you had to close it, lock it,

move on to the living room,
open that door,

close it, lock it, and carry on.

It really does slow down
your everyday life,

so there is a tendency sometimes
to leave these doors open.

One more!

Because they're left open,

water is no longer confined
to the engine room.

And now that the power
is cut,

the crew can't close
the doors remotely.

Twenty-nine of the crew
are called back

for a second grilling
by investigators.

This testimony provides
an exact picture

of the ship's last moments,

data which is now built
into a computer model.

At 10:15, three minutes
after the collision,

the ship is listing only
five degrees to the right,

but filling fast through
that hole in the engine room.

By 10:25,
she's listing 14 degrees.

Now the six-metre gash,
which was above the waterline,

is exposed to the sea.

This is the point
where the Samina

and 80 of those
on board are doomed.

The ship can't withstand
this degree of damage.

The Samina is what's
called a ro-ro ferry.

It stands for roll-on, roll-off.

This is a modern ro-ro ship.

Vehicles simply reverse in
through the stern doors

and then drive out
at their destination.

It's a cost-effective design

with a potentially fatal flaw.

The worst shipping disasters
in recent times

have involved vessels
designed this way.

The Herald of Free Enterprise
went down

with the loss of 193 lives

at Zeebrugge
in Belgium in 1987.

850 were drowned aboard
the ro-ro ferry Estonia

in the Baltic Sea in 1994.

Unlike a cruise ship
or a cargo vessel,

which are divided into
many smaller compartments,

the vehicle deck of a ro-ro ship
is one large, open area,

highly vulnerable
to rapid flooding.

Imagine comparing flooding
an egg box

with flooding just
an empty cardboard shoebox.

The shoebox would tend
to fill up very quickly,

whereas an egg box
would tend to fill up

each compartment at a time.

So the egg box
would stay afloat,

whereas the shoebox wouldn't.

This open space
is especially vulnerable,

because it's so close
to the waterline.

The car deck
on a ro-ro ferry is low,

to make driving the vehicles
on and off easy.

As a result, you're relying
on those watertight compartments

to keep the ship afloat
in the event of damage.

By 10:29, the Samina
is listing 23 degrees.

- Are we almost there?
- Yes.

She's now tilting so much

that it's impossible
to launch more lifeboats.

Only three of the eight
she carried got away.

Three minutes later, at 10:32,

she's listing 33 degrees.

At around 10:50,

the ship turns
completely on her side.

We know the exact time
that the ship sank

because the clock
on the bridge was stopped

at two minutes past 11.

Divers surveying the wreck

make their most important
discovery.

Of the ships
11 watertight doors,

nine were left open.

The most important aspect
of this accident

was leaving
the watertight doors open.

As a result, the ship flooded,

it lost all its reserve
of buoyancy,

and eventually sank.

If the doors had been locked,

despite the navigational error
which put the ship

on the rocks, despite the hole
in the engine room,

this would probably have
been a survivable accident.

The trial of ship's captain
Vassilis Yannakos

and seven others began
in May 2005,

more than four years
after the disaster.

The sinking of the Samina
led to safety improvements.

Greece cut the maximum
working life

of passenger ferries
from 35 to 30 years.

The tragedy also helped
speed the introduction

of voyage recorders,
like an airplane black box.

They're now mandatory
in all passenger ferries.

Some good came out of bad.

For the first time
since those dramatic events,

Katrina Stark
has come back to Paros.

It's an emotional return.

It was a pretty
traumatic thing to go through,

but it's quite
a character-building experience,

and I think it plays a large
part in who I am today.

For their role
in helping to save lives,

Heidi Hart
and Christine Shannon

were given an award for heroism
by the city of Seattle.

I understand
my strength a lot more,

and I can live freely...

without the restraints of being
scared of what's unknown.

Because life is an unknown.

Even for a heroine,
it's tough to look back.

Christine and I,

we always say,
"We were the lucky ones.

We were in the right place
at the right time."

And that is the only thing
I can think of

why we made it
and so many other people didn't.

And it breaks my heart.

difuze